Optimizing Scoring and Sampling Methods for Assessing Built Neighborhood Environment Quality in Residential Areas

Optimizing Scoring and Sampling Methods for Assessing Built Neighborhood Environment Quality in Residential Areas

Optimization of existing measurement tools is necessary to explore links between aspects of the neighborhood built environment and health behaviors or outcomes. We evaluate a scoring method for virtual neighborhood audits utilizing the Active Neighborhood Checklist (the Checklist), a neighborhood audit measure, and assess street segment representativeness in low-income neighborhoods. Eighty-two...

Residential Racial Composition and Black-White Obesity Risks: Differential Effects of Neighborhood Social and Built Environment

This study investigates the association between neighborhood racial composition and adult obesity risks by race and gender, and explores whether neighborhood social and built environment mediates the observed protective or detrimental effects of racial composition on obesity risks. Cross-sectional data from the 2006 and 2008 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey are merged with cens...

Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Wide-area Evacuation Difficulty in Densely-built Wooden Residential Areas

In aiming to decrease the number of casualties and people with difficulty in wide-area evacuations due to a large earthquake, it is highly important to visualize and quantify the potential danger in residential areas. In this paper, we construct a multi-agent simulation model, which describes property damage (such as building-collapse, the spread of fire and blocking of streets) and people’s ev...

Income disparities in perceived neighborhood built and social environment attributes.

The present study explored whether perceived neighborhood environmental attributes associated with physical activity differ by neighborhood income. Adults aged 20-65 years (n=2199; 48% female; mean age=45 years; 26% ethnic minority) were recruited from 32 neighborhoods from the Seattle, WA and Baltimore, MD regions that varied in objectively measured walkability and neighborhood income. Perceiv...